Beth and other gurus :) question for you about Ich and FW Dip/hyposal

[beattyr]

Beth,
You seem to be one of the people in the know here so I thought I would ask you. First I will give you my tank specs and then the problem.
37 gal tank (30"x12"x18")
110 W PC light with 50/50 and Act.
Berlin venturi skimmer
3 Aquaclear Powerheads (2x201, 1x402)
Magnum 250 canister filter filled with Kents Nitrate Sponge
Water conditions are PH = 8.2/8.4, Am = 0.0, Ni = 0.0, Na = 20ppm. The tank has been up about 3 months now and all water changes have been done with RO water. I use Instant Ocean and Coral-Vital (I THINK!!! I cant remember the name of the additive but I only need to add Calcium after adding this)
I have in the tank,
about 25lbs LR
about 4-6" LS (some storebought from a tank, some from the live sand in a bag at the LFS)
about 15 Blug Leg Hermits
20 or so Turbos
10 Sandburrowing snails
3 Murux Snails
1 CBS
1 Cleaner
1 Peppermint
1 Brown Brittle
1 Sand Burrowing Star
2 True Perc Clowns (both Juv. one larger than the other)
1 Freckled Hawkfish
My problem is Ich. The smaller clown has some spots, and the Hawk has a tiny bit on him as well. I first noticed it about 2 weeks ago. I took all 3 fish out and FW dipped them with water from my African Chiclid tank (correct PH and temp) for about 20 min, watching them the whole time (I had looked for how long and the best answer I got was "until they look stressed or about 15-20 min"). I never saw them act funny or seem really stressed but after 20 min I was worried so I put them back in. I also raised the temp up to about 82. The Ich went away till I saw it again on Fri. I did a dip again last night on the 2 clowns, the hawk was playing hard to get, I'll get him tonight. I know the correct thing to do is get a hospitality tank set up and treat them separately, however, can I defeat the Ich with just using dips and temp increase? I am going to take home an accurate lab thermometer just to ensure correct temp of the tank and I also have been adding crushed garlic to the food to try and help in that manner.
If I have to set up the hospital tank, can I treat Ich with Copper or do I have to use the hyposalinity method?
Also since I gave you my tank specs, do you see any inherent problems or
shortages?
Thanks for any help you can give
Rob Beatty

 

[beth]

Temperature increase does not kill ich, it simply accelerates the lifecycle of the parasite. FW dips will only hit parasites that are on the fish at the moment. It will not kill the infestation in your tank [parasites that are not on your fish]. The life cycle of ich follows this path: laying on rock/substrate to free-swimming to attached to fish, then the cycle starts over again. You must treat your tank either directly or indirectly to eradicate the ich. In the situation that you have, FOWLR, you can either setup a hospital tank for your fish and treat them in the separate tank, or you can move your LR and inverts to a separate tank, and treat your tank and fish in your main tank using hyposalinity.
Looks like you have DSB, however. If you have an established DSB with plentiful infauna, then you may not want to subject your main tank to hypo, as the effects on the infauna is unknown. Nitrifying bacteria will not be effected by hypo.
The point is, that your main tank must be treated also, as the tank harbors the parasite. That is why you keep seeing a resurgence of the parasite. You can either use hypo in your main tank with the fish remaining in that tank [removal of LR and inverts], or, alternatively, treat fish in separate hyposaline tank and leave your tank devoid of fish—thus breaking the necessary fish-host relationship that the parasite needs to survive.
Hope this helps! There are lots of threads on hypo here if you need more info on “how-to”. Otherwise, post back, and I’ll be glad to further assist.

 

[mr.flameangel]

Just to give you my 2 cents. I had ick and i also have live rock in the main tank. so what i did was put the fish in a 10 gal and treated them with Rid-ick that i got at the lf's. I left them in there for 1 month and then put them back into the main tank. i have not seen a sign of it for 2 months now and they all seem very happy.
not to go against beth or any other shark but i tried hypo and it didnt do the trick for me. maby i messed up some where down the line but i found that med and it worked for me. they say that you can use it with lr but i dont trust meds with lr. hope this can help in any way. good luck. mike

 

[clarkiiboi]

I just went through this last week (9 days ago), what I did was take the sick out and into a hospital tank and have been treating with copper. If you do this be sure to get a copper test kit to keep the parameters in check. Then I lowered the salinity in the main tank. As of now, main tank is still ok and the two in the hospital tank look 90% better.
If you do not have a hosp. tank it is really cheap to buy a 10 gall and add the bare neccessities. I used water from main tank (during a h20 change) and some sand (not sure if that was a good idea) and instant hospital tank. Its better than the fish dieing and youll always have it there just incase... HTH, it worked for me